


As if a beating heart

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: And Of Course - Freeform, Angst, Angst and Feels, Black Character(s), Character Death, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Families of Choice, Films, Friendship/Love, Heavy Angst, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Post-Finale, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Swearing, Tea, Time Travel, are we clear on this? do we have an understanding? good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 10:37:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14872149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Set six months or so after the finale of s2. A soldier, a tech geek, and a historian go on their final necessary mission. Lucy imagines possible futures.She imagines a bed. She imagines a bed carved from olive wood or from oak, a bed built into the structure of their life, a bed like the one Odysseus described to Penelope when at last he returned from his wanderings, when at last she was released from her vigilance.





	As if a beating heart

Lucy’s job is temporarily over. She found the archival holdings they needed, made the notes she needed. She’s guided Rufus this far. Now she just needs to wait. And keep watch. If a representative of the US government shows up, better to be a white woman with a pleading expression than a black man fiddling with their equipment. ‘Fiddling’ is, of course, a grossly inaccurate word for what Rufus is doing. Disabling. Hacking. Outsmarting. He lets out an unsteady breath. It’s only when this is succeeded by silence that Lucy looks around.

“Rufus?”

At first, he doesn’t move. Then he puts one hand to the ground, and she realizes that he is shaking.

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Yeah, we did it.”

“ _You_ did it!” They are still speaking half-voiced, as though this could help them avoid detection, avoid suspicion, if someone turned up after all. “Rufus!” She clasps his shoulder, then starts working her hand over it, almost absently, almost reflexively. “You did it!” Tears are starting to her eyes. “You did it!”

“Yeah.” His voice is still tremulous but she hears the edge of triumph in it. “We did it. Dismantled the system. Saved the world.”

She pulls him up to stand next to her, throws her arms around him. It does not feel quite real, that this — this, after everything that they’ve been through — could be the end. The end of the bunker, the beginning of something else. Rufus and Jiya outside a church, herself throwing rice or rose petals or whatever the equivalent is these days. Mason keeping his new year’s resolution of taking guitar lessons. Denise getting to her daughter’s soccer games. Wyatt and Jessica — thank God, at last — getting out, getting to have some kind of normal life together. The baby will be Liberty (Libby) if it’s a girl, Washington (Wash) if it’s a boy. They all take turns making up middle names. Liberty endless-hot-water Logan. Washington Netflix-subscription Logan. And she — something in her turns over when she tries to think about it. But it seems strangely, seductively plausible, a life in which she could return to teaching and studying history, a stable, unchanging, imperfect history, a history that will never again pull anyone back into it; history as she has always known it and as she must come to know it now, a shifting kaleidoscope depending on how you look at it, but with all the pieces more or less accounted for. It seems selfish to wish for anything else, anything more. And yet. 

“We should get going,” she tells Rufus, and they do.

And yet. (They are able to navigate the compound without difficulty, thanks to the blueprints digitized by the Library of Congress; she makes a mental note to make a donation when they get back to the present.) And yet. What he has always wanted most, she tells herself, as Rufus hot-wires the stolen car, is a family. His family. And while one version of such a life is lost, as irrevocably as Amy, to the past, then… well, that’s what futures are for, right? Her imagination constructs increasingly implausible images as they speed along the featureless road. He is a man constantly occupied, constantly watchful. And yet he is a man who hates — _hates_ — his self-imposed job. What if they allowed themselves to just… be? 

She’s heard from colleagues of all genders and sexualities how great it is to have a partner at home, how sustaining, how sanity-saving. But she hadn’t found the time to date seriously — who would, with an R1 tenure portfolio hanging over them? And she couldn’t imagine herself happy with someone as, well, as _safe_ as any of the faculty spouses/partners/other halves she’s met over the years. Safe is the last word she would use to describe Garcia Flynn. _And yet._ She imagines that indefatigable energy turned to building instead of destruction. She imagines bookshelves in every room, for his cookbooks and the tomes that won’t fit in her campus office and their novels in half a dozen languages. She imagines a bed. She imagines a bed carved from olive wood or from oak, a bed built into the structure of their life, a bed like the one Odysseus described to Penelope when at last he returned from his wanderings, when at last she was released from her vigilance. 

“Can this thing go faster?” she asks Rufus.

She imagines him teaching her to ride a horse properly, the way that doesn’t involve her falling off a saddle at the beginning and wishing she were dead or in a jacuzzi for three days afterwards. She imagines — and it gives her a curious jolt under the ribs — him teaching their children, herself leaning back into his arms while they watch a child on a fat pony. _Daddy, Mama, look!_ Lucy shivers.

“You okay?” says Rufus.

“Yeah.” 

“It’s just — ”

“Yeah,” says Lucy again. “I just want this thing over with.”

“Don’t we all,” says Rufus grimly, and brings the old-fashioned gas pedal down with a satisfying _clunk_.

They have, of course, brought Flynn along. It’s the kind of mission requiring, unequivocally, a soldier. And there was unanimous if unspoken agreement that Wyatt, given the situation with Jessica and the baby, should be kept out of harm’s way as much as possible. Wyatt himself — naturally enough, given his training — had tried to bring this tacit consensus up for debate. Mason had poured whisky for them all into his set of tea cups (still, remarkably, intact) and they had stood huddled over the blueprints, Lucy demonstrating with one index finger where the guards would be stationed, where they could wait for passing vehicles, how the sentries would have to be disabled.

“I could…” began Wyatt.

“No.” Flynn had said it without raising his voice, but the word was succeeded only by a crackling silence. Eventually, Lucy moistened her lips and continued, outlined a plan no more insane than their other undertakings, no less implausible.

“Well then,” Mason had said at last, “that’s it.” They had all begun to drift away from the table, Rufus’ fingers twined in Jiya’s.

“Thank you.” Wyatt had said it a shade too loudly, arresting each of them. Flynn had only nodded.

“Shit,” says Rufus, and Lucy is startled abruptly back into the present (past), where Rittenhouse’s ability to meddle with the global financial markets has been crippled, the US military-industrial complex de-incentivized in its infancy, and…

“Shit,” says Lucy. There are two camouflage trucks by the side of the road. She knows that Flynn would not have been unwise enough to let himself be seen; she knows that the Lifeboat could not have been spotted, though it could have been betrayed. What is most likely is that the Army, having consulted the same blueprints and elevation maps she has, picked this as the best spot from which to undertake surveillance of the compound as part of a patrol of the perimeter, at which point they would have realized that something was amiss, at which point Flynn would have… Lucy is afraid that Rufus will see her heart beating too fast under her skin, beneath her period-perfect blazer. 

***

They have always known that this would be the most dangerous part of the mission. No one says it in Jiya’s hearing; not even Mason utters quasi-paternal cautions. But later, Lucy finds Flynn in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. His gift for stillness is one of the things she loves about him. _Flynn_ elicits only a hum from him, _Garcia_ a raised eyebrow.

“We don’t know,” she says, her voice hard and trembling and desperate. “We don’t know how many of them there will be. Rufus and Jiya will have hacked the compound, hacked the comms — we’ll have a clear playing field, but they still might, they still might — ” 

“Lucy.” Her name in his mouth always sounds like a promise. She takes a deep breath. The kettle starts to whistle, and he takes it off the hob. “Earl Grey?” 

“You _asshole_ ,” she says, because she is trying to have a conversation in which she warns him about deadly danger, not one in which he holds out to her the simulacrum of the life she can hardly imagine, of the life that it hurts to admit she wants. His only response is a sideways tilt of the head, a quirk of the lips that admits that he might deserve that. He puts the tea into her hands, withdraws it when he sees how hard she is shaking. 

“Lucy,” he says again, and she is almost ready to weep. At her eye level is his chest, just above where he is holding their tea, one cup easily encircled in each hand. It is much, much easier not to look at his face. “Lucy.” She realizes that her teeth are chattering. With a sigh that is not quite one of exasperation, he puts down the tea. She lets him put his arms around her. 

“If they have sentries at the edge of the property — ” says Lucy into his sweater. 

“Lucy,” says her lover with what is definitely exasperation, but also affectionate amusement, “have you forgotten that I am, in fact, exceedingly good at — ah — dealing with unwanted surveillance?” 

She draws another shaky breath, fibers between her teeth, his heartbeat beneath her. “No.” 

“Good.” He plants a kiss on the top of her head. “Now. Put on one of your films. Drink your tea. If you want,” he adds, because still, _still_ (and this is also one of the things she loves about him, one of the things that breaks her heart) he sometimes decides or remembers to include himself in the category of persons by whom she might feel manipulated, used. 

Lucy bumps her forehead gently against his chest. “Yeah.” 

They watch “The Prisoner of Zenda.” In Madeleine Carroll’s first scene with Ronald Colman, Lucy suddenly wonders whether this was the best or the worst choice she could have made, because Colman looks at the exquisite, steely, duty-bound woman before him as if poleaxed by mingled desire and awe. And Lucy finds that it’s a strangely familiar expression. “We will always waltz together, Rudolf,” says the princess, later; Lucy knows that the lovers will never dance together again. She shivers, and Garcia draws her more firmly against his side. Somehow, this time, the whole film seems to be about loss. 

“See?” says Flynn, towards the end of the film. “This Rudolf Rassendyll of yours, he also wears sweaters. Such practical garments. Let the baddie have his black silk shirt; this man can dispatch an entire contingent of guards while wearing cable-knit.” 

“Mm,” murmurs Lucy. “What can I say? I have a type.” 

*** 

Wordlessly she and Rufus get out of the car, begin moving, as quietly as they can, across the grass, into the woods. But they hear no telltale sounds of conflict: no shouting, no shots, no blows… not even a gravelly, accented drawl asking if the person on the other side of his gun barrel _really_ thinks that’s a good idea. 

“There should have been only four of them,” Lucy whispers, when they stop to catch their breath, still a few paces back from the clearing where they left the Lifeboat, still listening to the terrifying silence of the forest. (He would have had to draw them into the forest, of course; he couldn’t risk one of them getting back in a vehicle to raise the alarm.) She tilts her head at Rufus, establishing that she’ll go first. Again: white woman, apparently alone. It never ceases to surprise her, really, that after and despite everything, the impression she still gives is _small, frightened, defenseless_ rather than _self-controlled, easily irritated, with quick reflexes._ She peers around the side of a rhododendron. If Flynn is being held hostage by one or a couple of these guys, she can launch herself at one of them with every confidence that, by the time she’s landed her first kick, Flynn will have disarmed the other. If more than two have survived the encounter, things will be more complicated. Lucy, certain that she has not been seen, begins to count the bodies. At the tree line, one (an unwary shout perhaps); several paces behind him, the second (a gun barrel raised too quickly, catching the light.) 

There is no movement in the shadows, no unusual noise (and if Flynn had been overpowered, she knows there would be noise. He would be crashing his way through the underbrush, cursing in five languages, making their lives hell. And if they knocked him out, they’d have to manhandle him back to wherever. She tells herself that she’d hear something, she’d hear something, while trying not to wonder why it’s so silent.) She stands up, and steps beyond the trees. Her new vantage point allows her to see the third crumpled corpse, clearly stopped mid-charge. She tries not to think too hard about the gun dropped by a nerveless hand; she prefers the eras when they have a clear firepower advantage. Almost in the shadow of the Lifeboat, she finds the fourth body… and the fifth. And even in that moment, with a deep and sickening certainty, she knows. 

Time, ever traitorous, seems to slow around her as she runs, the grasses rough against her stockinged calves. She falls, hears one of the seams in her suit rip, a silk lining tear. Struggling to her feet, she kicks off her shoes. (Years afterwards, she will stumble across an image of them when doing research for a lecture on twentieth-century conspiracy theories; she will read of the associated alien abduction believed to have taken place; she will shut down her computer and, thirty minutes later, cycling down El Monte, she will burst into tears.) She does not scream his name. She runs. 

She hits the ground beside him, instinctively trying to evaluate where the blood is coming from, what to do about it. “Garcia — Flynn!” She is sobbing for breath and she does not know which name is likelier to reach him. 

“Lucy.” There is blood in his mouth, and her name still sounds like a promise. 

“Shit shit shit,” says Rufus, one continuous curse, as he practically vaults past and over them, into the Lifeboat, towards home and safety. “Tell that murderous bastard,” he shouts over his shoulder, “that heroic self-sacrifice is not a good look on him!” 

Breath hisses between Garcia’s teeth; the stretch of his lips is, Lucy realizes, as close as he can come to a laugh. “Tell him,” he whispers, “that his jokes are terrible.” 

Lucy expels a breath. “He says your jokes are terrible!” You never know what might turn out to be a last request. 

“That’s the spirit!” calls Rufus. “That’s the spirit! I want to see you annoying Lucy again by the time I have this thing up and running.” 

His hand twitches, and she catches it in hers; his fingers are cold and clumsy against her cheek. 

“Garcia — ” She hates that her voice cracks. 

“One of us,” he says, incomprehensibly. “It was always going to be one of us.”

“What,” manages Lucy, and then starts over. “I don’t understand; it doesn’t have to be you; you don’t have to — ” What she is trying to say, she supposes, could be distilled to _no, no, no._

He opens his eyes again; it seems to take him far too long to focus on her face. “Till death,” he says, and there is a twitch at the side of his mouth, a smile rather than a grimace. “Till death.”

Lucy inhales as though punched in the gut; it is impossible not to know what he means. “Yes,” she says; “yes, yes.” She kisses his hand because it is the only part of him she can reach without breaking eye contact.

“Okay,” says Rufus, from the ship’s entryway, “we’re ready to — ”

“Not yet.” 

“Lucy,” says Garcia, and this time it is also a plea.

She shakes her head. He takes another breath, and she can hear the bubbling of blood in his lungs. “No,” says Lucy, and because it can do no further damage, now, she takes him in her arms, his weight still warm, still familiar. “We can have this,” she tells him. “We can have this.”

Behind her, Rufus jumps to the ground. He cocks his gun, clears his throat. “Flynn,” he says firmly, “you should know I’ve forgiven you for the Murder Castle and… and stuff. Any of it. All of it. It’s been… it’s been good.” He places a hand briefly on Lucy’s shoulder. “I’m keeping lookout. I’ll be close.”

Lucy forces herself to breathe, not to wait for each rattling, dragging sigh that tells her Garcia is still with her. His hand, released, has drifted to rest just over her heart. “It’s always been yours,” she says aloud. “It will always be yours.” 

She believes him beyond speech, until the moment he opens his eyes again. The sound he makes in his throat is something she does not want to associate with words. “What?” she asks, and bends still closer. She kisses him on the forehead, brushes his hair back. “I’m still here. What?”

“I — ” he says, and his entire body trembles with effort. “I — ”

“Shh,” says Lucy, placing her fingers over his lips, with a gentleness like a kiss. “I love you too,” she says. “I love you too.”

Improbably, impossibly, he smiles. She tightens her arms around him, as if that could be enough. After everything, what she is left wanting is more time. “Lucy,” he says, “Lucy,” and that is all.

She supposes that it she can still think of it as _their_ future, the moment she finds him in a São Paulo bar. She will find this man, savage and broken and looking at her as though she is a stranger (or perhaps not quite.) She will find him. She will behold him in his anger, and it will be an act of love. She will give him the promise of their partnership. She will stand across from him once more, and look into his eyes. She will see in them the grief of a man who has lost everything, and know it as her own.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, I really am. The title of the work is taken from Anna Akhmatova's "Requiem": https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/requiem/


End file.
